


An Elegant Solution

by valda



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Engineering, Fluff, M/M, Possible Witchcraft, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 10:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3116927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Carlos and Cecil grapple with a fitted sheet, and the word "scientific" starts to become a euphemism. This story slots in somewhere shortly after episode 35.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Elegant Solution

There were still boxes everywhere, but the big stuff was in, and mostly in place too. Carlos deserved a break. He'd just popped open a hard cider and settled back onto Cecil's fluffy couch-- _their_ fluffy couch--when his boyfriend's voice drifted out to him in a pitiful wail.

"Carlooooooooooos! Hellllllllllp meeeeeeeee!"

He couldn't help but grin, and he allowed himself a sip before abandoning the cider on the coffee table and heading down the hall.

"What is it?" he asked.

Cecil was in their bedroom, sitting on the unmade bed, surrounded by piles of sheets and blankets. The bed was new; they'd splurged on a king. So were the linens, and Cecil seemed to have unwrapped everything. The radio host raised his eyes to Carlos' and his face was helpless and adorable.

"You remember we bought _two_ bedding sets, right?" Carlos said, running a hand ruefully back through his hair. "It was your idea."

"Of course," Cecil said, frowning. "I'm trying to put the extra set _away_. But _look_."

Cecil held up his phone and hit play on a video. Carlos sat down next to him to get a better view.

"The trick of the trade is getting all the corners folded upon themselves," said a woman, her hands tucked into two corners of a fitted sheet. "Now, I want to make sure that we have a corner on each hand and that the inside-out is facing out."

Carlos found himself raising an eyebrow. "What--?"

"Just _wait_ ," Cecil said, his voice low and ominous.

"Take your right hand and flip it onto your left hand," the woman said, bringing the corners of her sheet together. There were two other women in the video, and both of them made the attempt. One was more successful than the other. "Your right hand," the first woman said again. "Right. Hand."

Cecil pushed his phone into Carlos' hands and stuffed his own hands into the wadded sheet in his lap. It looked to Carlos like he was doing it right. The sheet was inside-out. He was folding the corner in his right hand over the corner on his left. And he continued following the video's instructions, grasping the fold, shaking the sheet, running his hand along the elastic band to find the next corner.

"This is, honestly, where people get a little confused," the first woman said. "Because it does get twisted."

Cecil stared at the screen intently.

The video audience laughed as one of the women made a joke, and Carlos laughed too--but he broke off as the intent look on Cecil's face, well, intensified, to something that might be described as "obsessed." Or perhaps "abject terror."

"This is it," Cecil hissed under his breath. "This. Is. It."

"Pick that final corner up," the first woman said. The second woman seemed to manage. The third woman suddenly seemed to have twice as much fabric, her hands lost in what had become a wrinkled mess. Carlos glanced at Cecil and found that his boyfriend was completely enveloped, the sheet a giant wad that almost seemed to be _growing_...?

Cecil yelped in dismay, and Carlos found himself leaping up, tearing the sheet off Cecil, and flinging it across the room, because Night Vale.

The fitted sheet, lifeless of course, hit the wall and crumpled to the floor in a pathetic heap. From somewhere near Carlos' feet, Cecil's phone went silent as the video played itself out. There was a long pause as Carlos weighed his embarrassment about the overreaction.

"At first I thought it was witchcraft," Cecil said, his voice barely above a whisper. He was utterly serious, and was even trembling a little. "But there are no rituals I recognize. So then I thought maybe it's science?" He turned to gaze hopefully at Carlos and his eyes were huge and wondering. "I mean... _how_?"

Carlos wrapped an arm around his silly and sweet and wonderful man. "Folding is actually _very_ scientific," he assured Cecil. "The mathematics behind it are used to do wonderful things! There's nothing dangerous going on. It can just be difficult to comprehend where all the folds are going. Our brains don't normally have to think that way." Cecil relaxed a little against him. Carlos gave his shoulder a strong squeeze and let go, standing up. "Here, I'll prove it. _I can fold that sheet_."

"Oh, _Carlos_ ," Cecil said, offering far too much adoration for this very simple act, and Carlos flushed with pleasure as he strode confidently to the mess on the floor and shook it out.

"Here we go," he said, catching Cecil's eye and giving him a grin. Sometimes he just couldn't help himself. Cecil's swooning was always worth it.

He held out his arms, orienting the sheet and folding the corners together neatly. He straightened it, smoothed it, shook it. Tucked in the third corner. Ran his hand down...

Wait.

Carlos frowned and said it aloud. "Wait. It was just..." His voice descended into confused mumbling, and his hands came apart and back together. "Put this here...and then...but..."

The sheet was an absolute mess. It didn't even look like a sheet. It looked like a giant purple garbage bag.

"Um," he said, and dared a glance up at Cecil. Mercifully, his boyfriend was not laughing at him. Rather, Cecil was twisting his hands in his lap, looking a little disappointed. Which might have been worse than laughter, actually.

Carlos sighed, looked down at the mess in his hands, looked back up, and dropped the sheet in resignation.

Cecil rose from the bed to wrap his arms around Carlos, narrowing his eyes at the sheet. "Maybe this sheet doesn't _want_ to be folded," he said darkly. "We'll just offer it as tribute to the Brown Stone Spire."

Carlos dipped his head to kiss Cecil's neck. "No," he said, rallying himself. "I can do it. I just need some equipment."

Cecil brightened and gave Carlos a peck on the lips. "You are my _favorite_."

Carlos required more space to work, so he took the sheet back out to the living room, leaving Cecil to finish unpacking the bedroom. Hours passed as he focused diligently on the problem. Finally, just as the sun was getting ready to set (or not, depending on its mood that day), he sat back and smiled.

"Done!" he said triumphantly. "Cecil! Come here!"

Cecil emerged from the bedroom with a happy, expectant look--but that look was quickly replaced with confusion when he saw that the sheet was draped across the coffee table and down over the floor, completely unfolded.

Carlos grinned. "Watch _this_!" And he held aloft a newly-constructed remote control and pushed a big red button.

The sheet jerked off the table, straightening instantly in midair, and then it was folding in on itself, snapping together like jaws again and again until it had collapsed into a perfect square and fallen to the center of the coffee table. It was over in seconds.

Cecil gasped in delight and crossed the room to Carlos.

"Sometimes you just need a simple, elegant solution," Carlos said proudly, his voice going into lecture-mode. "I lined the fabric with a material that reacts to an electric charge. This causes it to fold, or unfold, depending on the state it's already in. I was very careful to create a configuration that would result in this sleek, optimal shape."

"Wow. That's _very_ scientific," Cecil said with an adoring smile.

Carlos took him in his arms. "Oh, _very_ ," he agreed. "Out of...scientific curiosity, how far did you get with unpacking the bedroom?"

"Actually, there _is_ something I need your help with in there..."

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously do not understand how fitted sheets are folded. It's gotta be witchcraft.
> 
> If you're interested, [this is the video](http://www.marthastewart.com/857014/how-fold-fitted-sheet#857014) Cecil was watching.


End file.
